I have another question actually:
Do you (or anyone else) know whether the /WP and /HOLD-Pins of certain SPI flash ICs are required to be connected to the ESP8266 in "Dual SPI"-Mode?
If so, then there is no real gain in GPIO count (/WP and /HOLD are used as Data2 and Data3 lines in Quad-SPI mode). At the time of my original post I haven't thought about it but as I was reading through SPI flash datasheets I noticed that they have these /WP and /HOLD pins.
I don't know if the ESP8266 makes use of them or if they just can be left not connected.
Anyways, happy new year to everybody